Tuesday, July 17, 2007

Check out the new fire stations








About a year ago, people from Jim Skelton's southeast Wichita district walked a picket line along Main Street in front of City Hall asking the city to build a fire station in South City. It couldn't happen soon enough for Skelton. But it will happen sometime around the end of 2008, fire officials say. Above are conceptual designs of all three fire stations that the city council approved. (Just click on the images for a larger view.) The first is Station 20, which will be built in far east Wichita. Station 21 will follow in west Wichita. And, finally, Station 22. Land hasn't yet been acquired for Station 22, but Assistant Fire Chief Mike Rudd said the city is working on that. The new stations will have separate dorm-style rooms instead of the more open rooms that firefighters sleep in at other stations. The two-bed rooms are intended to give firefighters more privacy and help attract more women to the profession. The large rooms next to the fire truck bays on Stations 20 and 21 are there to house alternative communications centers if something disables dispatch and communications downtown. Local community groups could also have meetings there.

We'll update you with new station addresses and a precise timeline soon.

(If you're curious where other city fire stations are, click here.)
(If you're interested in becoming one of the 31 new firefighters the city plans to hire, click here.)

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

"The two-bed rooms are intended to give firefighters more privacy and help attract more women to the profession."
errr uhhh nevermind..

Anonymous said...

How come the Fire Stations don't look like fire stations? Every other city builds brick buildings with Red doors, in Wichita we make them look like Jiffy Lube's or the new YMCA.

Anonymous said...

When is the city going to build these stations? The City has yet to break ground on any of these locations. We need to see ground broke and buildings being constructed, not empty promises.

Anonymous said...

If a girl cant get past the fear of sleeping in HER OWN BED in a room of guys, I wonder how she will feel when it's time to put her life on the line with those guys....maybe the can find her own fire room as well.

Anonymous said...

Thats a nice looknig shopping center, is the fire station behind that building? Really it looks like crap.

Anonymous said...

Good, now the female firefighters can take the male firefighters into her room and have some privacy instead of doing whatever they do in a large public sleeping area.

Anonymous said...

I'd like to resond to the looks of these FIREHOUSES...........Uh WHAT?????????? Each new firehouse has to have so much art infused on the appearance, why not make the firehouses look like old historic firehouses.....isn't that art? The fire services is rich in tradition and heritage, so let's get back to that and not have monstosities of cinder block pieces of crap! Look at other cities people!